3830. Robert Southey to [John May], 22 April 1822

 

Endorsement: No. 226. 1822/ Robert Southey/ – 22d April/ recd.
26th do./ ansd. 25th May
MS: Robert Southey Collection, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin. ALS; 2p.
Previously published: Charles Ramos (ed.), The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), p. 194.

My dear friend

We shall be very glad to see your son with you, & should be more so if we had a bed to offer him.

(1)

Southey was visited by John May and his son, John May (1802–1879), for four weeks in August–September 1822.

But in all likelihood it will be easy to get him one at the bottom of the garden, – & if not, one of the Inns is within five minutes walk.

(2)

The Southeys sometimes put up visitors in a building at the end of the garden at Greta Hall. The two main inns in Keswick were the Royal Oak and the Queen’s Head.

There are two Carlisle mails, & he who takes the wrong one has to spend three hours at midnight in a Manchester Inn, the worst place on this side Purgatory. The right one is that from the Bull & Mouth, which goes thro Doncaster. You must take your place to Penrith, which is 18 miles from hence: & You will be here in 41 hours from London. – When I am once settled in the coach I think nothing of the journey. I should look forward to this meeting with unmingled pleasure if you could come without a load of cares, & if you could make a longer tarriance. As it is I look to it with great delight, & not without hope that things will have brightened by that time (as they are not darkening now) & that you will find your spirits freshened by the visit.

Your God-daughter goes, I believe, this week to Harrogate. We shall miss her much, – but I am very glad that there is an opportunity of sending her there.

I hope I shall be near the end of my first volume by the time you come.

(3)

The first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832). It ran to 806 pages.

indeed it is time I should, because of its length, – & there is little but plain sailing before me. – Something it will enable me to place at your disposal – I heartily wish it were more.

I have a great deal to show you, & a great deal to say –

God bless you
yrs affectionately
RS.


 

22 Apr. 1822.

Notes

1. Southey was visited by John May and his son, John May (1802–1879), for four weeks in August–September 1822.[back]
2. The Southeys sometimes put up visitors in a building at the end of the garden at Greta Hall. The two main inns in Keswick were the Royal Oak and the Queen’s Head.[back]
3. The first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832). It ran to 806 pages.[back]
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